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Wednesday, 30 June 2010

I managed 45 minutes on the Wii fit on Monday and did a 2 hour walk on Wednesday, thereby completing my weekly body magic aim but also giving myself a bad case of 'Fat-Girl's-Leg-Chafe' at the same time.

For those not in the know

'Fat-Girl's-Leg-Chafe' is when you walk on a hot day in a skirt and your chunky thighs rub together until red raw. The burn is unreal. On the painful walk home I contemplated what I hated more about my fattiness. Was it the

'Fat-Girl's-Leg-Chafe' or the 'Belly-Clap' - which is when you move quickly and the lose skin on your belly makes a clapping noise against your lap.

I think it is the 'Belly-Clap' because others don't need to know about the pain between your legs, whereas the clap is audible and therefore you're subject to public fatty humiliation.

When I got home I popped a peeled banana in a freezer bag and stuck it in the freezer with a muller light toffee yoghurt to make "Banoffee Ice-Cream Pie".

WHAT WENT INTO IT FOR ONE PERSON:

1 banana, peeled and broken into chunks

1 alpen light toffee fudge bar (1/2 HEALTHY B OPTION)

1 muller light toffee yoghurt

HOW I DID IT:

Put banana and yoghurt in freezer for about 3 hours

Stir yoghurt every half hour to ensure it freezes consistently and not just round the edges

Blend the Alpen bar into small pieces and pack into bottom of food presentation ring

When frozen blend the banana and pack tightly on top of the alpen bar base

Top with frozen yoghurt and serve

I think there is an argument that the banana would need to be synned as it is blended. My understanding is that if you blend a fruit you are more likely to over eat it as you can down 3 bananas and a punnet of strawberries in one smoothie. But this is one banana so I will refrain from synning it but if weight loss slows I will start to syn it then.

I've been having some physio sessions lately because after my pregnancy SPD I didn't do my pelvic floor exercises correctly and didn't start using my core muscles again after the birth of Squirky. As a result I've been supporting my weight and posture from the centre of my spine. And now it really hurts.

During one of these sessions my physio mentioned that I am apple shaped. This floored me as I always thought myself to be pear shaped, which I consider a slightly sexier fruit to look like as it hints at having a waist. But no, I'm an apple. A big fat sphere with arms and legs sticking out the side. A bit like mummy pig from Peppa Pig.

This is explains why I can't find clothes that suit me at all. If they fit my waist then they flap around my thighs and arms. If they fit my legs I can't get them done up.

Then I realised that my pregnancy clothes still fit and are actually preferably to my normal clothes. They are made to flattering a perfectly round belly. Not only that but most shops have a unique maternity range, not just maternity versions of whatever else they stock, so I am less like to see other people wearing the same as me and me feeling bad because invariably they look better in it than I do. So I've invested in a couple of TopShop maternity dresses from eBay and they are SO comfortable and SO pretty and are a size 18, which is less depressing that the size 22 items I've been wearing the past couple of months.

I only need to do this until I drop the weight, and on Monday night I made "Banger and Broccoli Pasta Bake", which is a very light pasta dish and there is enough here for me to have leftovers for lunch on Tuesday.

WHAT WENT INTO IT FOR FOUR PEOPLE:

350g pasta

500g broccoli florets

Frylight

8 Joe's Sausages

Pinch of lazy chilli

6 tablespoons vegetable stock

Parmesan to personal taste (HEALTHY A OPTION)

HOW I DID IT:

Cook the pasta as per packet instructions adding broccoli 3 minuts before end of cooking time.

Fry sausages until brown all over (approx 5 mins). Cut each sausage into 5 pieces and put back in pan with chilli & stock and cook for 2 mins.

Drain pasta/broccoli and add the sausages. Sprinkle with parmesan and grill for 3 minutes.

Sunday, 27 June 2010

We had Sunday lunch with the In-Laws from Heaven before setting off to friends to watch the England v Germany match.

I spent most of my meal trying to coax the Troll to eat one of each type of vegetable on her plate, which also helped distract me from the fact that everyone else had potatoes roasted in goose fat, yorkshire puds and gravy made with the meat fat on their plates.

Even though M-I-L from Heaven goes out of her way to ensure I can eat everything on my plate, it's normally all veg and salad. If I were a normal person this would be more than adequate. But I'm a fatty-bom-bom so actually all I'm doing is thinking about getting home and filling up on pasta and potato. I'm not ungrateful - I'm greedy....

Now the diet is all sorted and I'm happy with how it is going I'm going to start adding a new exercise commitment. I am going to start weaning Squirky on Monday so in solidarity I'm going to start weaning my fat bum off the sofa. No more watching an episode of Friends that I've seen 6 times before to fill a gap. I'll fill it with exercise instead.....

This is how I'm going to tackle it:

Week 1 -3 = Two x 45mins of exercise per week

Week 4 - 6 = Three x 45mins of exercise per week

Week 7 onwards = Four x 45mins of exercise per week.

Right, I've said it now. Let's see if I can stick to it! I'd better dust off the Wii!

Saturday, 26 June 2010

The Troll is so called as a nod to moomintroll. Her soft squashy face when she was a wee bubba made us think of the velour hippo-like puppet from the eighties. Her nickname is meant affectionately.

Not like the Trolls that have invaded the Slimming World Facebook page. I don't have ANY affectionate feelings about them. My personal tactic is to report, block and ignore their comments. These people hide behind made up profiles and comment on real peoples lives simply to make others feel bad about themselves. It's what makes them happy. They feed off people responding to them.

So "Booooo" to the Trolls.

But "Yay!" to Slimming World and the lovely ladies I have met through Facebook and Blogger sites who are genuine. We are still looking after each other and finding inspiration in one another. Fact is the Trolls are right, we are fatties! (well, I am at least) but we've made a choice to fix that, and this support is helping us get there. Troll rant over.

Talking of inspirational ladies helping people reach their dieting goals, Mother-In-Law from Heaven made a gorgeous BBQ for dinner on this sunny Saturday evening. (Picture to follow when I get home tonight)

I had a mixed green salad with tuna, prawn & scallop skewers marinated in rosemary, garlic and olive oil (HEALTHY B CHOICE) and a mango and onion salsa. It was blinking gorgeous - and syn free with the oil as a healthy choice.

Friday, 25 June 2010

My thumb-sucking heart-breaker of a baby girl has become infected with the dreaded PINKEYE! Thus our family have become social lepers and Friday was spent calling friends and rearranging plans for the coming weekend. At first I thought it would mean having to find things the four of us could do on this hot and sunny weekend that would involve no one but ourselves. I imagined us staging our very own mini Big Brother. Or 'Big Blubber', involving a blacked out living room with my Chunky Lover screaming at the World Cup match, the Troll scribbling all over walls and Squirky's eyes being glued shut.

But we are saved - our in-laws from Heaven are still welcoming us to their home with open arms and a wedge of sterilised flannels so that no-one else need get contaminated with conjunctivitus. Troll can go wild in the garden and Chunky Lover can still see the footie with his friends.

Mother-in-Law from Heaven is preparing a BBQ and has asked what I can eat - so I am having salad and fish kebabs. I'm also mulling over what I can take along for nibbles during the evening. But that's for tomorrows blog.

Back to Friday's foodstuffs. I made a visually pleasing and very tasty "Buttermilk Chicken with Citrus Rice Salad".

WHAT WENT INTO IT FOR TWO PEOPLE:

2 chicken breasts in strips

grated rind and juice of 1/2 lime

1 garlic clove

pinch of ground coriander

tablespoon of fresh coriander

2 tbsps buttermilk (0.25 SYNS)

100g mixed basmati and wild rice

4 spring onions

handful baby leaf spinach

grated rind and juice of one orange

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Frylight

HOW I DID IT:

Put chicken in non-metallic bowl. Mix the lime, garlic, both corianders and the buttermilk and coat the chicken. Leave for at least 10 minutes but preferably overnight.

Cook the rice as per packet instructions and drain.

Fry the onions for 1 minute then add to rice and stir through the orange rind and juice, soy sauce and spinach.

Cook chicken under the grill or in pan using fry light.

Serve!

BREAKFAST: 3 EGGS, 4 RASHERS OF BACON AND 2 QUORN SAUSAGES; LUNCH: OLD VEG SOUP (ALL THE VEGGIES I HAVE LEFT OVER FROM THIS WEEK'S RECIPES FRIED IN SPICES AND CHILLI THEN BOILED IN VEG STOCK AND BLENDED) AND

Very sweet delivery man arrived and brought all my shopping up to my kitchen (LOVE!) but then handed me an obviously defrosted bag of 'frozen' raspberries saying 'not sure what's up with these'. (HATE)

I then found my box of mini-milks (for The Troll but only 1.5 syns each) had literally become milk. (HATE)

I asked for them to be refunded. He got me to sign before doing the refund. I asked if I would definately get refund. He said 'sure - I'll sort it out later'.

I checked my receipt and found he had given me someone else's. I asked for mine. He eventually found it in van.

He left and I then found all 15 freshly delivered eggs were crushed. (HATE)

I phoned helpline who refunded the eggs (LOVE!) but then said I'd have to wait 3-5 days and check my bank balance to see if I had been refunded for raspberries and mini-milks and call back if not. (HATE)

3 hours later I got a call from an apologetic call advisor (LOVE!) who said he was very sorry but todays delivery would need to be cancelled because their van had broken down. He was surprised to learn I already had my delivery. (HATE)

Poor Tesco. Obviously having a bad day. I'll let you off because you delivered my fat free Onken. (LOVE!)

Luckily they also delivered all I needed to make "Sweet Cherry Tom Crispy Chicken" (Jamie Oliver inspired again - guess who got a load of JO books from the library)

WHAT WENT INTO IT:

Chicken breasts

Bunch of fresh basil - chopped

Two punnets of red and yellow cherry tomatoes halved

1 bulb of garlic cloved

Tsp of lazy chilli

Seasoning

HOW I DID IT:

Preheat oven to gas mark 4

Season the chicken before fitting them into a casserole dish.

Cover with the basil and all the tomatoes, garlic and chilli.

Spray with fry light and mix for a moment the pop in oven for 90mins turning the tomatoes half way though and topping up fry light if needed.

Wednesday, 23 June 2010

Wow, my Wednesday morning weigh-in was pretty special. The day I went on holiday (and temporarily stopped dieting) I weighed in at 14 stone 12lbs. The day I came back from holiday I weighed 15 stone 6lbs. 2 days later it's my official weigh in and I'm 15 stone 2lbs.

4lbs loss in 2 days? Pretty cool. Now to work on those other 4lbs for next week. Shouldn't be too hard as I have nothing special planned and have got about 15 new recipes lined up to try out. This time round I've realised that you don't have to follow 'slimming world' specific recipes (not that they aren't lovely most of the time), but I'm easily finding really tasty food in normal cookery books that work on the plan.

Boil the new potatoes with the mint until slightly overcooked and then fry them in in the olive oil (or frylight) until golden and a bit crushed.

Meanwhile slip a knife inside each of the squid and use another to cut through as far as the knife, so the cut doesn't go all the way through the squid.

When the potatoes are nicely golden add the onion and mix them up.

Season the squid with the ground white pepper and a little salt, then tip the onions and potatoes on another plate and use the same pan to fry the squid for two minutes on each side. Add the garlic and chilli and coat the squid nicely, then add the whole lot together for a final mix on the stove before serving with squeezed lemon.

Tuesday, 22 June 2010

My multitasking skills failed me today when I combined making lunch with preparing Squirky's sterilising solution. I caught myself adding a sachet of chilli chicken powder from my supernoodles into the sterilising bucket full of fresh water.

Other than that I am settling into diet mode once again after our holiday and am enjoying feeling a touch healthier again. I'm even considering....exercise! We hired a bike on the holiday camp last week. The first ten minutes killed me, but I really got into it and am now wondering if I could manage a whole hours exercise a week......watch this space.

On Tuesday evening I served a side of "Slow Roasted Balsamic Tomatoes" with chicken and boiled new potatoes. The tomatoes are meant to serve 6 but me and my Chunky Lover ate this between us. I mainly got the recipe wrong - I had no baby leeks (I used normal ones sliced thinly), no fresh bay leaves (I used dried) and I think I used the wrong size tomatoes. Tasted lovely though so will definitely give the proper version a go at some point! Click here for the original Jamie Oliver recipe and see how badly wrong I got it!

How The Mummy Got Her Blubber

Moomin Troll was born in the Autumn of 2006. Whilst pregnant my face had got so fat my eyes squinted out of it, my arms flapped when I waved & I got chub rub.
I joined Slimming World weighing 15st6lbs. The word of Margaret Miles-Bramwel was followed as gospel & by the time I was engaged, married & pregnant again I’d lost 4st. As close to a yummy-mummy as I might ever be.
But morning sickness required ginger biscuits & pregnancy exhaustion demanded convenience foods. I couldn’t be bothered anymore.
Squirky arrived with the 2010 snowflakes, & left 5st of mummy blubber clinging to my tum & bum.
I started this blog on 17 May 2010 having lost almost a stone so far on the Extra Easy plan, & by the Power of Syns Online I vow to lose a further 2 st. Any more is a bonus & deserves ice cream as a reward.

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This blog is a daily account of everything I have eaten, and includes how I cooked one meal a day.

As with most people cooking at home, I cook a mixture of meals that I have been part of our regular menu for many years and also recipes that have caught my eye in books or magazines.

In cases where it's a family fave, I simply can't remember where many came from, whether from magazines, taught by family or books. It's probably fair to say that if they did come from a printed source, through trial and error they will be very different from the original recipe by now.

If I do report on a meal that I have created following a recipe I will always quote the original source, and my retelling of it will be how I recreated it in my own kitchen rather than quoting the recipe as printed. I will include any changes I made either to keep it in line with SW requirements, omitting items I don't like, or not having an ingredient to hand.

I am not claiming these recipes to be my own, simply retelling how I followed various recipes, and spreading the messagethat when you are on a diet you don't have to follow a 'diet recipe'- there's a world of gorgeous food out there to enjoy and here's how I am enjoying it!

The syn values are worked out per serving and are correct (to my knowledge) at the time of posting. Syns change those so always double check.